Root Cause Analysis & Troubleshooting

Downtime may be really expensive.

Regardless of any precautions and preventive maintenance practices, sometimes things just go wrong, and need to be fixed as soon as possible to avoid expensive machine downtime. Fixing a problem requires an understanding of how to isolate and define it.

Troubleshooting and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) must be carried out to define the elements at the root of the failure reaction chain and to fix the most probable causes of failure, which are often inter-linked.

FAILURE ANALYSIS AND TROUBLESHOOTING

CST has the technical capability and resources to respond quickly to field emergencies, analyze the problem, propose solutions, and supply any components required to fix the machine.

With a probability assessment based on experience and a detailed analysis of the symptom-cause-failure chain, the most probable cause and its relevant viable solution can be identified.

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS WITH PROPOSALS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING

CST has a dedicated group of senior engineers who can run multidisciplinary RCA to understand problems, perform field investigations / measurements and recommend corrective actions.

CST can also provide independent third-party advice for most machinery-related problems.

OVERCOMING RECURRENT FAILURES

Machinery reliability is often impaired by recurrent failures, which are accepted by operators and expected to be unavoidable. With its design engineering know-how and experience, CST can study the behavior of the machine in its environment from scratch and accept the challenge to identify sustainable remedies, thus overcoming an apparently unimprovable issue.

SOME EXAMPLES OF CST’S RCA & TROUBLESHOOTING ACTIVITY

short piston ring life
Paper mill compressor piston seals quick wear was troubleshooted by piston rings improvement.
high hyper-compressor piping vibration
High piping vibrations on a Hyper-compressor was investigated and cured by strain-gage pressure measurement, pulsation analysis, orifices insertion and support modification.
steel mil igcc failure
After two catastrophic failures of an integrally geared centrifugal compressor, CST RCA allowed to put it back online successfully by changing bearings.
power generation steam turbine start-up failure
Two steam turbines had the same severe rubbing at the start-up. CST found the cause and the solution
polypropilene screw compressor troubleshooting
Frequent piping support failure was eliminated by FEM analysis and new support design.
ldpE high pressure cooler ruptures
Repeated Hyper-compressor interstage cooler ruptures due to excessive vibrations were cured by FEM study, new support design introduced.
cylinder valve catastrophic failure
RCA assessed the failure being caused by overpressure due to sudden liquid ingestion.
knocking sound from a cylinder
RCA and FEM revealed faulty piston rod dimension and tightening procedure

For information on CST activities, email to:

FILIPPO CINELLI at filippo.cinelli@cstfirenze.com

LUCIA MATTESINI at lucia.mattesini@cstfirenze.com

GIULIA TOSI at giulia.tosi@cstfirenze.com

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